Antelope From the African Swamp

[sniffer 167]

Yet again very interesting swampy ive caught wel's catfish up to 180 on the ebro in spain and 96 here in the uk best fighting fish by far in the uk never eaton one thou good luck with your brood stock! do you milk them into a bucket like they do with trout in the uk?

[swamp thang 16]

I've heard of the Wells catfish in Spain's River Ebro, Sniffer. There have been a couple of Discovery Channel programs on those monster Wells, one of which included an interview with a German angler who is credited with illegally introducing Wells into the Ebro River back in the 1970's, by driving over there from Germany in his car, with a few hundred fingerlings that he released into the river.

 

Hatching here starts at night with a hormonal injection of a Canadian-manufactured drug called Ovaprim, to both parent stock. This is only done in the rainy season from about May to September, when the females are full of eggs. That injection ripens the eggs overnight, and at dawn the eggs are stripped into a bowl. Earlier that morning, the males are slit open, part of the testes is removed, and the opening stitched back, so the testes can re-grow in a year or so.

 

The testes are slit open and squeezed into the bowl of eggs, which is then swirled about with some water added, to be sure that fertilization has taken place. The eggs are then spread on a mesh in shallow water, where they hatch in another 24 hours, after which they must be graded for size every six days, or, like Wells fry, the big fry will eat the small ones till there are only a handful left.

[sniffer 167]

Yes i also watched that programe about the german man swampy look what he started some are pushing 3 hundred pound now and they will eat anything they can get in there mouth and they have some mouth on them

[fireman 10,934]

What a grand thread and one of the best on THL .